Shit, that will happen one day.
Probably a lot sooner than I’d like.
“One day it’ll be you,” I rasp, as she closes the space I put between us and touches the worn leather of my cut. She stares up at me through her long eyelashes, smiling as she pins the boutonniere beneath my patch declaring me the president of my club. “All dressed in white, you’ll probably want to make your grand entrance on a bike…”
“Will you take me to church on your bike with my big pretty dress?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“What if I asked you to wear a tux?”
A fucking tuxedo. Shit, I glance down at what I considered dress attire—black jeans, new so they still looked black and not gray, a white dress shirt and my leather cut. Oh, and the new leather moto boots that Reina insisted I buy for the wedding.
Reina was good with the biker wedding. As long as she got to pretty herself all up she didn’t care what I wore, aside from the worn boots. She wasn’t having it. Glancing around the clubhouse, taking in how the florist was making this place take shape for a wedding, I knew it was perfect for me and Reina but not Lacey.
Lacey would be the one to stuff me into a monkey suit.
They say a daughter is a man’s weakness. It’s the fucking truth.
She laughs as she smooths down her hand over my vest.
“I’m kidding,” she teases, kissing my cheek before stepping back and giving me a once over. “Okay, big guy, my job here is done. You look ready to marry the love of your life. It’s time for me to go primp the bride,” she declares, pressing another noisy kiss to my cheek. “I’m really happy for you, Dad.”
“Thanks, sweetheart, means a lot,” I reply, bringing her against my chest one more time.
“You’re going to squash the flowers!”
“Fuck it, we’ll get some more,” I kiss the top of her head. “Love you, Lace.”
“Love you too.”
After a few moments I loosen my grip on her, watch as she balances herself in her heels and grab the box of flowers on top of the bar.
“Where is the blushing bride, anyway?”
I grunt, shaking my head at the ridiculousness.
“She’s upstairs in my room, refusing to let me see her. I had to sleep here last night too and snuck out this morning so she could shimmy her ass in here,” I growl. “Woman is superstitious as all hell,” I say, taking another swig of the whiskey as Lacey’s laughter vibrates through me and her heels click across the floor.
Lacey disappears up the stairs to tend to Sunshine, leaving me with the florist and the baker that had arrived with the cake. All we were missing here was the fucking candlestick maker. Pipe and Wolf took to my sides, the nomads too. Except for Linc, who walked around the bar and pulled a few clean glasses out and filled them with the whiskey I was hogging.
“Think this day deserves a toast.” Pipe begins. “Never thought you’d take an Old Lady, much less marry one,” he says, handing me a glass.
“Fucking threw me for a loop too,” Wolf admits, raising his glass.
“And she’s hot,” Linc adds, earning a glare from me.
“The woman can cook too,” Wolf chimes in. “Not just a pretty face and smoking piece of ass.”
“Wolf,” I growl.
“Calm your tits, Parrish. Can’t help a man for appreciating beauty.” He lets out a huge belly laugh.
“To Jack and Reina,” Pipe cheers. “Here’s to health, wealth, and the little biker that’s going to be running around this place.”
raise my glass, tipping my chin to my brother in appreciation.
“To Reina,” I add. “And all the sunshine she brings to this place.”
“To Sunshine,” everyone cheers.
The Bill Wither’s song, Ain’t No Sunshine, always reminded me of Reina, especially after Jimmy Gold kidnapped her.
She was young, a bit shy, a whole lot sheltered until I came storming into her life.
I should’ve let her be.
But she had me from the very first time I set foot inside Dee’s Diner.
Now, I’d never let her go.
Because…
Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone.
Only darkness every day.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Standing in front of the mirror, I tie a knot in my white silk robe, my stomach twisting in knots. My anxiety spiking to levels I have never experienced. Today is my wedding day, a day I wasn’t so sure I’d ever see. I was going to marry the love of my life, promise to share all of me with all of him. I was going to be Jack Parrish’s wife.
It was everything I ever wanted and nothing I knew I needed. The crass biker who strode into the diner, night after night, for five weeks. The man I barely looked at, hardly spoke to. The man I never wanted to give a second glance was the man who rescued me from my own hell, my own torment and breathed life back into my soul. He healed me and in the process, I healed him too. We were broken, lost, two fractured souls who found one another in a sea of grief and despair.
Piece by piece, brick by brick, we built one another up and then he asked me to marry him. Of course I said yes, I wanted to marry Jack Parrish more than I wanted to breathe. But as much as I wanted him, I was frightened to have him.
It all goes back to having everything and having everything to lose.
I’ve been there before.
My relationship with Danny may have been a farce. I still don’t know if he truly loved me. How could I? There were so many lies between us it was impossible to decipher the truth. At the time of the fire and his death I didn’t know about all the lies. After the fire I found myself in a hospital, covered in burns, listed as a Jane Doe, grieving for a man I knew nothing about. I grieved for the woman lost in that fire, the man I thought was my forever and the deceit our forever was built upon. I lost everything I thought I wanted.
Now I have everything I want but everything I need too. I have a real forever. True love. I have Jack Parrish and I am so afraid of losing him. My fear is consuming me, turning the happiest day of my life into a nightmare full of anxiety. I can’t shake the feeling lurking in the pit of my stomach. The strange sense that something terrible is about to happen. Call me crazy, but it’s not like doom doesn’t fall on the Satan’s Knights doorstep frequently. In fact, it’s more common than not.
I was too wrapped up in my head to hear the door open but I heard Lacey call for me as she walked around Jack’s room.
“In here,” I rasp, lifting my hand to my throat, swallowing down the fear and forcing a smile on my face, one that didn’t reach my eyes.
“Happy wedding day,” Jack’s daughter cheered. Standing in the doorway of the bathroom, her smile falters when she takes in my reflection in the mirror. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I lie, spinning around to face her.
Her eyes widened, and she takes a step closer, placing her hands on my shoulders.
“Reina, everyone is arriving, you need to get dressed,” she whispers, lifting a hand to my hair which still tied back in a ponytail.
“I just lost track of time,” I insist, drawing in a deep breath as I reach for her hands and give them a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll hurry up.”
Her dark eyes skeptically stared back at me, assessing me, probably trying to figure out why I looked so fucking scared on my wedding day.
“Okay,” she says finally. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Can you go downstairs and tell everyone I need a little more time?” I ask, turning around to face the mirror. Grabbing my make-up bag off the counter, I rummage through it, busying myself so I didn’t have to look at Lacey and have her discover how nervous I was. I didn’t want her to think the worst, that I didn’t want to marry her father.
“Sure,” she says, pausing a moment. “I’ll go do that and be right back.”
“Thank you,” I mutter, keeping my head down, pretending to dig in the bag, for what, I don’t know. I hear the do
or close behind me and finally lift my eyes to stare at myself in the mirror.
“Snap out of it, Reina,” I hiss to my reflection. “Everything will be fine. Nothing will stand in the way of you marrying the love of your life.”
Please God, let it be true.
“Bulldog, looking sharp,” Nikki Pastore greets, working her way in-between the band of brothers surrounding me.
“Well if it isn’t my favorite Pastore,” I grin, taking her and pulling her into a hug.
“It’s Valente now,” she corrects, returning the embrace.
I had a soft spot for Vic’s youngest daughter, took a liking to her the moment she and Mike jumped into my truck and she robbed my cigarettes.
Pulling back, I avert my eyes back and forth between her and her new husband. Mike Valente, dressed in black dress pants, a white V-neck t-shirt and a sports jacket that matched the tailored pants. Taking another look at Nikki, I notice she matched his attire with a black and white dress. They were the perfect fucking couple, made me real proud to have a hand in saving their asses.
“You two get hitched and didn’t tell anyone?”
“It was a spur of the moment thing,” Mike replies.
“We got married in prison in front of my father. We went to the courthouse yesterday to get our marriage certificate.”
“Bet you made your old man the happiest he’s been in a long time.” I wink at her. “How’s your mom doing?”
“She’s okay, hanging in there,” Nikki sighs, before smiling sadly. “Sits by the phone day and night.”
“Dad!”
I peel my eyes away from the newlyweds and turn to face my daughter.
“Hi everyone.” She waves before grabbing a hold of my arm. “Excuse us one minute,” she adds, dragging me off to the side.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Reina,” she huffs. My face must have dropped because she quickly adds that she was fine physically. “I think she has a case of wedding jitters—” I didn’t wait for Lacey to finish explaining. Leaving her in the common room with the guests I start for the stairs, superstitions be damned. Climbing the stairs two at a time I reach the door to my room and pushed it open.
“Sunshine?” I call, stepping inside the room, my eyes falling upon the wedding gown lying across my bed causing me to freeze in my tracks and imagine what she’s going to look like in it. Fucking beautiful. Stunning.
The bathroom door slams shut pulling me out of my trance.
“Jack! You can’t be in here. It’s bad luck to see me before the wedding.”
I walk to the door, leaning my forehead and splaying my palm against the wooden door I drink in her scent.
“Reina, what’s going on?” I question.
“Nothing, I’m getting dressed,” she answers in a high-pitched tone.
“Open the door, Sunshine,” I coax. “I promise to keep my eyes closed, I want to feel you, touch you…”
“It’s not locked,” she whispers behind the door.
I turn the knob, closing my eyes as I promised and open the door.
“Where are you?” I ask, holding my hand out as I keep my eyes closed. She fits her hand into mine and I take a few steps further into the bathroom.
“Turn around,” I demand. “I want you facing the mirror.”
It wasn’t that long ago we stood in this very position. It was the night I claimed her to my club, the night I confessed all my sins to her and the night she gave me her scars. It was an act of self-control, keeping my eyes straight toward the mirror, not allowing them to travel across the body I worshiped as she undressed for me and exposed me to her secrets. I remember thinking she ruined me, then realized all she did was fix me and how badly I wanted to fix her.
Like now, whatever is bothering her, I want to fix.
“Are you facing the mirror, Sunshine?”
“Yes,” her voice cracks with the simple word.
My hands roamed the air searching for her. Finding her I drop them to her shoulders as I stand behind her.
“What do you see when you look in the mirror?” I probe, my voice husky against her ear.
“I see you,” she whispers. “I see me.”
“You and me.”
“Us.”
“Look lower,” I command gently, pressing my lips to her ear as I glide my hands down her sides and wrap them around her, splaying both hands against her bump. “Now what do you see?”
“I see love,” she whispers. “I see so much love.”
“What else?”
“The future. You, me, him or her. I see Christmas mornings and birthday parties. I see you standing behind our child waiting for him to blow out his candles on every cake you put in front of him. I see Lacey and Blackie, their wedding, their kids, their life we get to be a part of. I see visits to Jack, sharing with him all the stories he’s missing. I see rides, long rides to nowhere particular. Dinners with a table full of your brother’s, big family dinners.”
“I see all that too,” I admit, eyes still closed tightly as my lips trail down her neck. “It’s called forever, Sunshine.”
She places her hands over mine.
“You,” she whispers.
“Me,” I reply, brushing my lips across her shoulder. “Marry me, Reina. Let me spend the rest of my life seeing forever through your eyes.”
“You think I don’t want to marry you? Jack there is nothing, not a thing, I want more in this lifetime, in this crazy world than to marry you. I told you before I was scared and that’s no lie. I’m so scared of losing you. It was never a question of whether I want to be your wife, it’s a question of whether or not I’ll get to be. I have such a bad feeling that something will happen, something terrible and it’ll all be over before it began. Our perfect forever gone before we even get to say I do.”
I growl and something feral explodes from my mouth as frustration gnaws at me. I promised I’d keep my fucking eyes closed because all I want to do is spin her around, force her to look me in the eye when I tell her there isn’t a goddamn thing in this world that will stop this wedding from happening.
I may not know much.
Might not be worthy of anything at all.
But I know for sure that Reina was put on this planet to be Mrs. Jack Parrish. She was born to wear my patch, born to be my old lady.
And me?
I was put on this earth to love her.
To heal her as she’s healed me.
To protect her and chase away her demons.
“Reina, I can’t promise you we won’t face times that are ugly. I can’t promise that club business won’t fall into our laps, at our doorstep or even at special times like the one we’re about to share but I can promise you I protect what is mine. I can give you my word, I always fight for what is mine, and you, you’re mine, this forever is mine, it’s Property of Parrish.” I smile at her. “And you know how serious I take my property.”
“That scares me, Jack, because I know you’ll lay down and die before you let anything ever touch me, this baby, Lacey. You’ll always choose us over you. Don’t you get it? I choose you. I choose your life.”
“We all gotta die sometime. When our time is up, it’s up, but I’m not dying anytime soon, Reina. I’m going to live to a ripe old age. I promise you that,” I say with conviction.
I believed it or I wouldn’t swear it. God didn’t want me, Satan didn’t either, the only way my existence will end is when this body of mine grows old and tired, worn like the boots she wouldn’t let me wear today.
I feel her turn around in my arms, her hands on my face, inching up to my eyes.
“Open your eyes,” she whispers softly.
“You sure?” I ask, respecting her beliefs, even if I thought they were nuttier than a fucking fruitcake.
“Open your eyes,” she demands.
On command my dark eyes bore into hers
“Tell me what do see,” she says.
“I see a beautiful woman who is far stronger than any
I have ever known. I see beauty. I see light. I see promise. I see her. I see me. I see a full life full of love. If I look closer, I see the answer to every question I have ever asked myself. I see relief from the darkness that has consumed me for most of my life. I see Sunshine. I see Mrs. Parrish,” I say huskily.
She grabs my face, rises onto her tiptoes and covers my mouth with hers. A kiss to seal the moment. I knew the moment I laid eyes on her, she would ruin me, wreck me, heal me and fix me. She would force me to feel. She would love me, accept me and honor me all the days of my life.
“Whose property, are you?” she asks softly against my mouth.
It was a familiar question, one she asked me that same night she gave me her scars.
“Whose property are you then?” She asked, her eyes flickering with something I couldn’t name.
“No one’s,” I answered, taking her hands and pulling her toward the bathroom.
“Whose property are you, Parrish?” she repeats.
I pull back an inch, cup her face in my palms as I lean my forehead against hers and stare into her eyes, into her soul.
“Yours.”
Always yours, Sunshine.
Forever yours.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Alone.
Darkness, my only friend.
My mind, my only companion.
I am confined to four walls, never to see the light of day again. The only time my body will touch the Earth’s soil is when it is buried beneath it.
Seconds feel like hours, hours feel like weeks, and days feel like years. I have no idea what day it is or how long I’ve been trapped here. By the scent of me I’m guessing it’s been a damn long time. I’m filthy, my throat is parched, and my stomach is empty. My already failing lungs are collapsing, disintegrating from the cancer and I feel as though I am suffocating. I have no strength left, not even to stand and walk to the toilet and I faintly feel the warmth flood my pants.
The pride I hung onto with all my might is gone.
I have nothing left.
I pray for God to take me but He continues to make me suffer and pay for my sins.
The Tempted Series: Collectors Edition Page 185